Cal's academic performance in football improves

BERKELEY -- Cal's Academic Performance Rate (APR) score for football, which last year had a four-year average that ranked worst in the Pac-12 Conference, is inching higher.

Results that will be released next week show a substantial hike in Cal's most recent one-year score. The football team's 2012-13 score of 969 jumped 46 points from the 2011-12 single-year score of 923, and boosts Cal's four-year average from 935 to 938. That mark might still be the lowest in the Pac-12 because the program's low scores from the previous three years remain part of the equation.

The NCAA gave Cal permission to release APR scores for football ahead of its May 14 unveiling of results for all schools and sports nationwide. A spokesman for the athletic department said the school received permission to release the scores ahead of the official announcement date as evidence of the academic progress being made.

Cal men's basketball will see a drop in its four-year average because a perfect 1,000 score from 2008-09 is being displaced by the latest single-season mark.

The APR measures academic eligibility and retention or graduation. It is different from the Graduation Success Rate results, which are revealed each fall and strictly charts graduation figures.

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Athletic director Sandy Barbour told a media round-table Monday that the improvements are the result of changes in the support structure and the academic culture within the athletic department.

"It's every day, everything you say to them," said Barbour, explaining the new emphasis.

Barbour said Cal's low scores primarily reflected a failure by the athletic department to require athletes to meet expectations. "I do not lay this on the student-athlete."

Credit for the improved 2012-13 football mark is shared by former coach Jeff Tedford, who was fired after the 2012 season, and coach Sonny Dykes, who took over before the 2013 spring semester.

The Chancellor's Task Force for Athletics and Academics has worked since last fall to review the situation and provide suggestions. The task force will submit its report to Chancellor Nicholas Dirks late next month.